Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Stalky & Co.
    Stalky & Co.
    Stalky & Co.
    Ebook317 pages2 hours

    Stalky & Co.

    By Rudyard Kipling

    4/5

    ()

    Switch to audiobook
    Read preview
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateJan 1, 1976
    Author

    Rudyard Kipling

    Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) was an English author and poet who began writing in India and shortly found his work celebrated in England. An extravagantly popular, but critically polarizing, figure even in his own lifetime, the author wrote several books for adults and children that have become classics, Kim, The Jungle Book, Just So Stories, Captains Courageous and others. Although taken to task by some critics for his frequently imperialistic stance, the author’s best work rises above his era’s politics. Kipling refused offers of both knighthood and the position of Poet Laureate, but was the first English author to receive the Nobel prize.

    Read more from Rudyard Kipling

    Related to Stalky & Co.

    Related ebooks

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      BOOKS & MUSIC

      Nov 18, 2019

      Vincent Carruthers is an environmentalist and the author of several books. His latest, Cradle of Life – The Story of the Magaliesberg and the Cradle of Humankind, takes readers on a journey of discovery into this UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. Carruthers

      6 min read

    • Article

      The Bullroarer In 19th Century England

      Jan 5, 2022

      Andrew Lang, in his influential 1884 book Custom and Myth, wrote: “The instrument which produces the sounds that warn women to remain afar is a toy familiar to English country lads. They call it the bull-roarer. The common bull-roarer is an inexpensi

      2 min read

    • Article

      Building Struggles

      Jan 5, 2023

      Building Struggles
      5 min read

    • Article

      Nature, Healing, And A Good Laugh

      Sep 30, 2022

      Adam Riley's Birds of South Africa (Helm, R250) is the second in a new series by British publisher Helm, the first being on birds of the Middle East. And few would doubt that Riley is qualified for the job. Growing up in KwaZulu-Natal, he is a birdin

      2 min read

    • Article

      The Fly King Speaks: Meet Fredrik Sjöberg, author of the sleeper hit, The Fly Trap.

      Mar 12, 2015

      So I’m reading The Fly Trap by Fredrik Sjöberg, a slim book by a writer I’ve never heard of, and I’m riveted for reasons I can’t explain. I honestly have no idea what the book is about. The author begins by talking about the time he worked as a prop

      6 min read

    • Article

      You Only Need Two Bricks

      Sep 23, 2022

      We sat in front of a blazing fire in the hearth of the tiny hunting cabin. The chimney drew well as long as the door was kept slightly open, like Lem Putt advised, to get the draft just right. We were sipping a most wonderfully aged 56-year-old Caber

      5 min read

    • Article

      Otherlands Author Thomas Halliday: ‘Some People Have Insisted On Reading The Book Backwards’

      Jan 28, 2023

      Thomas Halliday was born in 1989 and raised in Rannoch in the Scottish Highlands. He studied zoology at Cambridge before specialising in paleobiology for his master’s and PhD – winning the Linnean Society Medal for the best doctorate in biological st

      4 min read

    • Article

      Six Bestiary Poems

      Nov 1, 2020

      The world, is it finite? Pliny the Elderon what he saw and heard, 37 “books” toround that up, early C.E. as heproceeded to be infinite. His Naturalis. His Historia.First bestiary ever in Book 8. Land lifeand sea life and through-the-air and undergrou

      4 min read

    • Article

      Your Say

      May 5, 2022

      Your Say
      5 min read

    • Article

      Lazy Days

      Mar 10, 2022

      Lazy Days
      6 min read

    • Article

      Time Out

      Aug 30, 2019

      E.F Knight’s Cruise of the Alerte is one of those sailing books that has all the classic ingredients for a ripping yarn. A cruise in a small boat to an exotic location, a few rows along the way and a fruitless hunt for treasure at the end of it. Knig

      5 min read

    • Article

      Perfect Prose II

      May 15, 2020

      Perfect Prose II
      4 min read

    • Article

      Commonplace Book

      Sep 1, 2023

      In the popular belief, ghosts are a selecting tribe, avoiding millions, speaking to one. -Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Demonology,” North American Review, 1877 Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned in long grass. Let the stars appear and the moon disclose he

      3 min read

    • Article

      The Story Behind…

      Dec 16, 2022

      The Story Behind…
      2 min read

    • Article

      Burning Man Blazes Into Britain: Can Its Wild Sculptural Magic Work In The Dales?

      Mar 23, 2022

      Climbing the inside of Christina Sporrong’s gigantic head, I look up towards the books that are escaping through the top of its open skull and fluttering out into the perfect blue sky. I have to watch my step – there are some gaps in the railings – u

      5 min read

    • Article

      Book Reviews

      Nov 28, 2019

      Book Reviews
      4 min read

    • Article

      Clangers

      Nov 6, 2019

      Clangers
      5 min read

    • Article

      The Spaces In-between

      Jul 15, 2020

      We were just off South Cape when a voice came out of the long-wave radio and announced that Tasmania had closed its borders. Everyone stopped moving. Eyes like plates, jaws dropped to the floor. Coffee mugs suspended mid-flight. The whole catastrophe

      3 min read

    • Article

      A Bushman To The Core

      Dec 21, 2022

      A Bushman To The Core
      5 min read

    • Article

      Town & Country Notebook

      Apr 3, 2024

      1) The Chester White is a breed of what animal? 2) Which brass instrument is commonly used for military signals? 3) What is the proper name for the human thigh bone? 4) Which constellation is named after the mother of Andromeda in Greek mythology? 5)

      4 min read

    • Article

      Around The World In 100 Plants

      Oct 26, 2022

      Simon Barnes (Simon & Schuster, £30) WE have become used, in recent years, to the convention of 100 short essays as a means of raising the reader’s eyebrows and setting away a never-ending series of big ideas from the starting point of an everyday o

      5 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      Aug 10, 2023

      Reading the article ‘Here’s sick in your eye’ [FT431:50] reminded me of a book entitled We Are Electric by Sally Adee. In this we read that Alexander von Humboldt inserted a silver wire connected to a galvanic pile into his rectum from which he exper

      12 min read

    • Article

      Commonplace Book

      Sep 1, 2020

      We should build parks that students from afar Would choose to starve in, rather than go home … We must have many Lincoln-hearted men. —Vachel Lindsay, “On the Building of Springfield,” 1912 When the researchers posed as pedestrians waiting to cross

      3 min read

    • Article

      Stories In Stone

      Jun 18, 2019

      Stories In Stone
      7 min read

    • Article

      Out On A Limb

      Aug 30, 2023

      Out On A Limb
      7 min read

    Reviews for Stalky & Co.

    4/5

    114 ratings6 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      A rollicking read of three schoolboys in a small Victorian era public school on the Cornish coast of Britain. Follows on from Kipling's 'Many Inventions' and probably connects many of the characters with other Kipling tales. Most of the boys at the public school are army or navy children born, as Kipling describes, in barracks and on board ship and so, it is implied they have an inbuilt knowledge for the morals and ethics of the military and treatment of their fellow man. Each story is an illustration of 'fairness' as determined by Stalky and his two cohorts, Beetle and M'Turk.
    • 3/5
      One of my absolute favorite books when I was a child, though I understood perhaps a half of the language and little of the context. Stalky, McTurk, and Beetle conspire against their masters, cheat, bully their superiors, and exact revenge against the sanctimonious with a ferocious joy that makes them eternally appealing. Never mind that Kipling's worldview is irredeemably skewed. As I was rereading it now, decades later, I understand better how my own naive perceptions of the world were formed, It is the quintessential English public-school novel. And yet I still enjoy the book. "The bleatin' of the kid excites the tiger."
    • 3/5
      The casual brutality of the late nineteenth century really comes through in this novel. But since the young people of the school in the book were all being trained up to be cannon-fodder, perhaps that was an appropriate way of rearing boys. Women don't feature in the story at all, except as a means of humiliating one of the characters and to be put in their place by Kipling as only having one role in life.But having said all that the story is entertaining, as Stalky and his friends use their brains to subvert the rules and frustrate their teachers, all in preparation for doing the same once they were in the army.
    • 4/5
      This book, besides being a rollicking good story, brings up a number of questions about education and the interactions among youths. By the lights of the early 21st century, Stalky is a bully, but then so is Robin Hood, who is obviously one of Stalky's role models. Is there a place for the righteous use of power in society? How do you know when you've moved off into unrighteous territory?It's also obvious that these boys know much better than their masters what they actually need to know to survive in adult life. Instead of doing their school work, they go off and learn the local dialect and morés, pick up bits of engineering, tactics and statecraft when and where they can, and learn the school material that is most useful to them as individuals. They're also comfortable being outsiders. It looks rather idyllic, but then we're seeing the success stories. What do you do with people who don't thrive in this kind of environment?Don't let my idle speculations get in the way of enjoying these stories the way Kipling meant you to.
    • 4/5
      This is at the same time a gloriously anarchic collection of schoolboy adventures and a political tract that argues that Britain's military and political strength relies on precisely the qualities of lateral thinking, resourcefulness and refusal to accept authority without good reason that are developed by spending ones teenage years engaged in guerrilla warfare against incompetent and self-important schoolmasters. Obviously, this argument has its weaknesses, but we can read and enjoy the book without taking it too seriously. In many ways, this is the template for the post-Victorian British school story, in which more attention is paid to fun and less to moralising. Stalky and his friends find plenty of opportunities in the course of the book to mock the Eric, or Little by little type of school story. One area in which other writers of school stories didn't follow Kipling's example is his utter lack of interest in team games. Cricket and rugby take place entirely off-stage and have no significant impact on the story. Later writers obviously heavily influenced by Stalky & co., from P.G. Wodehouse to J.K. Rowling, invariably take the easy way out and use The Big Match as the dramatic highpoint of their school stories. (Since I share Kipling's distaste for sports, this was one reason I quickly got bored with school stories and moved on to novels written for adults.)Something I didn't really notice when I read this as a child was how very specific the locations are. Although it is never named, there is doubt at all that this is Kipling's old school, the United Services College in Devon. Conventional school stories are set in old and distinguished institutions with long years of tradition; Kipling foregrounds the differences from such places. The "Old Coll" is of relatively recent foundation, it has no traditions, it exists primarily to make money for its shareholders, and it is designed specifically to get the sons of expat empire-builders into empire-building professions themselves - something it clearly does well. The Head is a man of taste with a good library, but does not appear to be especially scholarly. In moral and disciplinary matters he is a supreme pragmatist - Stalky and his friends take great care to cover themselves legally when they launch one of their escapades, but the Head just punishes them anyway if the result is that he has to listen to tedious complaints from masters. The escapades themselves are what you remember from the book, though. When Stalky gets even with someone, it isn't a matter of a bag of flour on top of a door: it is a subtle campaign of psychological warfare in which the victims are made to bring destruction upon themselves. You don't have to be 14 years old to appreciate these sories - most of them work just as well for adult readers.
    • 4/5
      A series of Kipling stories of three resourceful schoolboys who usually get their own way. I particularly liked a part where a strategem Stalky (leader of the band) applied while in school came in useful again years later in India, when fighting in the "Great Game" - a nice illustration of the Duke of Wellington's aphorism that the battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton.

    Book preview

    Stalky & Co. - Rudyard Kipling

    1^book_preview_excerpt.html}ێHxՍi`$HPTRvR[BaI%Id=̝~؇e 4q!v9vit?l0; [zd6of7_|!7?W]]y})/U7fB|c07C5:n2B o{s({w_]y~i섫t);{`pJ76w*BSQ2;mVӥDoy-%>5S 2/ơoWW; Y~.ۅцYjֿBu9`f[+b-ꪟOyysum~^1yկa#>OL_WZ1`3/U]};~!v-+r ˳W}=^;xK5O??{`l=l``+64}g%ZD] Wӗ.LT*pvf^/`3 :8 նQVV$iG$Z hw0~ [Q>1C$YO 1}ki-6\?,J滛wȅD(u= ӷH{(qShM>K4z<)3vPS]t<8dA!1.IHd=Ф+qaYj2;$F(S /.[HzRTG[QWҤXVASײq <}ULKeTjlm'0HA`_)-@4yL`f}iwSEhsעH(\E,A Y5TN$~i+,gV Yr0K_׮p CHX24Q= /hv(yoB8P?80iZ_|՛f ^ a zWLB]^,zE]0oP cD^5! V*Hw>:Ee+ٌ݇}$K$} elcLsYekgC/ ڢk.5G ԂDwf~) :U%9oU˦V)<׊( 1|[EΣZ&mEl2;/MuY=A`{U EVT l5E]ꅙJƙ+cU kaz%Kd*nQua6E~-JMT]V47Ui dI/򱄑rlg뇅+(|ʼҹf uG-PdD]}Dբz.5*@X3E؍P*+$z ,ͩ[Ka-fKPm={~2GYU[ hUOm]bvTcoQ go%>eNe)C[OkcLZniUhI$Q(`ygn?R pupˎ;;IC-aiz#-*w@]ckO~JP*j0'^zis7bj^֮cG'ꗥo/Jo/Ju 2*3('?6/>_n 첬Ϳ_4؉yiWqgW͋w]rCNE=Jcƕosn#\6e\Y6Rt~,"RʍaF~6BrztKׯ ]^?M}q-u UUnҺD`Uy}Wm_[qgo_aQ }ũ;Ķ6ﲛ1ܪ qJ#&/PJɫI6鏦ǨRk<f8# [5$٤c6P{uVÚopZr֐X5fܧoɊ [B6Q?' 6_smH \6<9r/Z{V: .ߔXynJk-ćySѴxLpPrm[.qfCmTE4yo0<[-r5Tj:UqBVsAO ԝ׾R=Q}wmwx*V5lZ ]*EmWYEossPvpz6b%HfzM/!hN: namԞ;p˘GvKc܍9zqo9aAeB0%Xs뱑bk]l`zmKwbv5r=hY4Eqpz.vAUȃàxu' \!+ON:D,;Ц4.̞x9i9f~Y&M:$Ҭ5A Ω 6 -̂%8;7wv,dYC0[YR 9O&ZYWJLxy\?h0qBq6xE\dtڹP Y;juDvƘ}[R[lz]&P2{%z3l`HEP {VoD՝+4J\\j/\zt]r^# l4֤(z~D=JsMp1Ѳ̦Q40bn [7̬9 3;]VYn)QoaI*4:YKG+ƶ>MX?v.6=K4hp=,G$%Ff qss ÷}fWe]i*H)#y|jog$)-z23T`0<1XU5+)hŧx}16/̏b#ԝ~ eϏ=~Cl[5I# Rfdƴ#H+fWSdj|-bߓ\?7]]Y­Wo3$lcCph V^ե8y \buTA"N g. 0:fLm n{ mʥꡮv%{ݹZu^6羸O~w~XDk'5TZ\p_y$Tbz}L'Ա>$F+jX!#'9jAʷҁTێ)yR`n+{ Z]f= [0L`s u Gkp6c \OLdtE.oM^ \ 3pq[9qavmft$0D}"ߩԃ/v;0@ e&rDfrs5ψrūxruRv?Y8ZC`sd%TW )`VX)P)[,9l-Eh3Nj!N>󵇾ku*^d|X=Io9 >Ljꡜy}?I(}xk=V4]=IvzژzNmѯ[^ޔ(]OH|"[ 5/vt|i4 sp E$PNNiX9柸cB}Dk-WD ; mB,]"/餈 D`;7F p?R*6Bų'O  =5&t5+ Wgc Ay1ޚXJ}^#M.7gDVq'ZCWiOn"+44N| 7akQ!1HQBo6H3ǎDݢgzCW@Ɔpma e6G [B7E #lZ u8,E%իGr RuZ'[u۳Kf+֙PvT(TaXD׻XfʋeҸIJ\;F%zۏmws| AQ-Ǝ AbkcoB%%˩sS|QCY([XRqO DCC}XJŠ&خqCW ր3I "_rw/I(2J~Q,)v~pzf$kdz3;`Bj@ߟ8D\3βA7°':].jޫJ.0%pwւ EQV`.tC~dBDoQ7myZfޮ߶l׈!ZE*)gX#$H1ĕd!9 i)DcC44 vR\;I{aV/8;$ʤPrJ͂2bWm.Q4>,\U*ʑ@ [RwXn =3+g%lT>R7pv `5DRSX/oMO@,G؈SUm]`@#w8‚TZ2SpKLf]ϔu _ѢO2C <PԼdCcYijH"Щ)82`unZ 3'4$8H!- ȭ&+VH JKW v/? `9 wH/fЊaA6jOecfRQG8(=cX܃6@kSֆ:PۊymWc\]AyCgk_& T2²(R%U=1q&nbM'؍B.[?l9>Ȯ r)E񈛈&{Ht(T g~ON#B܌>9(RK L(G^9! !"uU܆a(SR'#<]<,wY<2ܼˬEWPdQ}Gw"J9{aP9 i\QV~:zALAd"8OM,%ևb >HZ~9PxN+9 ݖ'y)a7fRsGc0p# 5bƤ΢ط_K Ft^!)$f2/iF4t9OAxk^Ȟ 1~ ϖN9;?K#Bj(3T95RLby1QL+y>pTܲ+qOwncb't*"@*pA@kHTf32uxSi2q|Ao>k%7( @6iy}z=},rǮvH"P<%ivI P!MN)CB`l됗:jh-&0X2QQHE!67s,7}]I#KX$ HU֎8@jWD/'5"գ)M SbI gnY>57gaKs.-o}o9WN@7,*1fA94!h5\'+kB߄h%oKDL 2h_2V.݇7.ˠCk!'HE9#a JTb<dfq"P zђ[ЎB $*o9 -΍a&%(`]wbc[vyuqpG[?N7;qrP²i%dp5DX1J0Z ;;ҍ}y? dsA-݊uzG9Q2֥;u> r6հYqfj1yoh)9 LTsIIQq6-%j>WwW4/W_] IS!$rr_m?kZ Z+e7{>܅NH8,"MiչN\s}]:%M k].IK B ə%ଊC1ldPɁ F9^횯bu;BXlm}t -?D`9 wKRnFf Pej\_H\&-ܭ Ԯ?˶.Cqul1O'ˑ<:{ćn Xux.y6S d58jٔ:q|(FV*6/xbbF7`T7tz$>CoIy9*ؾ5j 󢧗qq"m]a9RĒ}>H y5xqܒabs5VA7_bKtd;U!rKD>faJ}9J&H7oգ 3^:qY0" 8 1%=sKCzbO$,ğJZɾ)>嬳ɱǻ 8:(Ja%FuJ}t`|Jiaum9dQTDf!1쇬*‡zB&=LJ1GcuhǶB?Ϥ)m.|¿g&<IRwZI jLrzڀ?&$(KS8I2lw]n(p@H^aJU>Ef;.F&P usRQ8uaf/ +r%ܪmp`䮎r']e#ձmyޢJ pLJEl>:O6FdiAWBzӌ&8F,zd?/T U乢7Mպ€Zp}0РPΒjAjݗ-KSI%~"u폜IK0Cv8i2(AZpY&lDǺu ѕN! ,OU G)Srgk+[M!ޒ墭OX9"RIB>kdWؚeӱՂ Qprd&ERG  9>ͪ2jG1Hz j㮬M>² $Aԓz<.9oC{8m#  i #d;ʸJ91#h.,vd_X ̬O ]EWwW.&0~$Eƅ|A9Fmtq`r\3 .m\$lЭ92D03&N!/e^r i XLƭIaIlD.5-L)qNIA" *٠Ѱ:֞,"%HG])cuB*/J h* QV= nJ8iA#!9O?VaSڸ-9-᥇uD ҤM Ѧh18Kgd8F[.1JvI KHa ּåH  h6`os%MJ[Q/y:Z>5},b&GΤxikɆJ:o*ֱK {Gj_2{=+ tRʞ_.y
    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1